Participants of the panel "Silicon Valley in Poland – is it possible?"
The Economic Forum is the largest political and economic conference in Central and Eastern Europe. This year's edition features 500 debates, with over 6,000 participating experts. In addition to Dr Dominika Kaczorowska-Spychalska, the panel "Silicon Valley in Poland – is it possible?" was also attended by Dr Konrad Wojnarowski, Deputy State Secretary, Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy, Izabela Bodnar, Member of the Sejm and Head of the Standing Committee on Entrepreneurship, Przemysław Kania, General Manager of Cisco Poland, Jacek Łęgiewicz, Corporate Affairs Director, Samsung; and Piotr Brewiński, Vice-President of the Management Board of FinTech Poland. During the discussion, the experts discussed how Poland can effectively develop in the field of new technologies.
An efficiently operating ecosystem supporting Polish innovation must be based on the idea of the triple helix, connecting business, universities and state administration entities. Each side of this ecosystem plays a dual role in it. On the one hand, it is the creator of needs and the initiator of new ideas, on the other, the recipient and consumer of specific solutions, tools and systems. The synergy between them is the glue of this system, but how can it be achieved now by reconciling all interests?
– asked Dr Kaczorowska-Spychalska.
According to the experts' findings, key to Poland's technological development are actions aimed at:
- increasing cooperation between state administration units, businesses and universities, aimed at accelerating the initiation of research processes, increasing cooperation between units and commercialisation of results,
- intensifying the scope and dynamics of cooperation between business and science, mainly in the area of education (e.g. dual study programmes, microlearning, avatarisation),
- intensifying activities promoting science in order to increase its impact on the environment in the social, economic and cultural spheres,
- increasing the level of internationalisation of Polish research on digital technologies, in particular AI, taking into account various fields and scientific disciplines – not only exact sciences or engineering, but also social sciences, humanities and Arts,
- counteracting the generation gap that is currently observed in many computer science courses,
- further developing existing frameworks and systems (e.g. tax systems) enabling enterprises to simplify procedures for financing various activities in the field of digital technologies, also taking into account those implemented in cooperation with universities (e.g. implementation of digital technologies in teaching and research processes, joint virtual laboratories, etc.).
Do we therefore have a chance to become Silicon Valley someday? During the panel, we agreed that this was not possible at the moment. And although it is good to compare yourself to the best, in my opinion we should find our own path and consistently pursue it
– added Dr Kaczorowska-Spychalska, summing up the discussions.
According to the report of the Digital Poland Association "Research and development activity (R&D) in Poland", we are a country that has been systematically increasing expenditure on research and development, which gives us 14th place in terms of the amount of expenditure incurred in this area among EU countries. This applies to the largest extent to investments made by enterprises, which constitute almost 66% of the total expenditure on R&D activity in Poland. The analogous share of universities in investments for research and development is at the level of approx. 32%. This still neither guarantees us either a high position in the European Innovation Ranking, nor a high position of Polish universities in world rankings, such as: Shanghai List or QS World University Ranking.
Source: Dominika Kaczorowska-Spychalska, Faculty of Management, University of Lodz
Edit: Marcjanna Jagielska, Communications and PR Centre, University of Lodz